Aircraft egress from, and aircraft ingress to, airports is conducted in accordance with so-called terminal procedures. As is generally known, the terminal procedures for each airport generally include one or more arrival procedures, one or more approach procedures, and one or more departure procedures. As is also generally known, arrival procedures are used to move an aircraft from its enroute airspace to a terminal airspace for landing, approach procedures are used to move an aircraft from a terminal airspace to a specific runway for landing, and departure procedures are used to move an aircraft from a terminal airspace to enroute airspace. Each of these terminal procedures includes various types of information such as, for example, communication frequencies, lateral fix information, and vertical fix information.
The terminal procedures are published as charts, using textual, graphical, and iconic formats, by governments and, in some instances, by various companies. For example, in the United States (U.S.), Jeppesen publishes terminal procedures. The terminal procedures are typically published as printed paper books. For example, the terminal procedures covering airports in the U.S., Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, and Pacific Territories, are published by the U.S. government as a 26 volume set of printed books known as the U.S. Terminal Procedures Publication (TPP). The TPP provides various types of arrival, approach, and departure procedures for each airport in this coverage area, including Instrument Approach Procedure (IAP) charts, Departure Procedure (DP) charts, Standard Terminal Arrival (STAR) charts, Charted Visual Flight Procedures (CVFP), and Airport Diagrams (AD).
The published terminal procedures, or at least portions thereof, are carried onboard each aircraft for use by the flight crews. Established rules and regulations mandate that the terminal procedures at least be available to the aircraft flight crew when conducting an arrival, approach, or departure procedure. Typically, before conducting one of these procedures, the flight crew may open the appropriate volume to the appropriate procedure to extract the procedure information therefrom, and then implement the procedure. This can be a time consuming and laborious task for the flight crew.
More recently, the terminal procedures discussed above are being published electronically, in an effort to move toward a so-called “paperless flight deck.” The electronic versions of the terminal procedures, when displayed on an electronic display device, provide exact replicas of the paper versions of the procedures. The electronic display device that is used to display the electronic terminal procedures may use an existing display that is already integrated into the flight deck, or a separate, stand-alone display device, known as an “electronic flight bag.”
Although the use of electronic terminal procedures may eliminate the need to carry the paper versions onboard an aircraft, it does present drawbacks of its own. In particular, recent testing has shown that electronic terminal procedure usage may not decrease flight crew workload as compared to paper terminal procedure usage, since the flight crew still functions as a data router. Moreover, testing has shown that electronic terminal procedure usage may actually increase flight crew workload as compared to paper terminal procedure usage. This potential workload increase results from the need for the flight crew to electronically search, scroll, and zoom the displayed electronic terminal procedure images.
Hence, there is a need for a system and method that displays terminal procedure data to aircraft flight crews that does not rely on the flight crew as a data router, and/or is less time consuming and laborious, and/or decreases flight crew workload. The present invention addresses one or more of these needs.